Western Living Magazine
Trade Secrets: How to Design a Problem-Solving Prep Kitchen
Mood Board: 6 Things That Keep Designer Kelly Deck Inspired
KI Atelier: Immersive Storage Design
5 Incredible New Wineries Have Hit the Okanagan
The Grape Escape for Wine Enthusiasts
The Gin of the Summer (and Fall, Winter, Spring) Is on Sale
Dark Skies in Utah: Chasing Cosmic Connection on the Road
Cycling the Emerald Isle: A Windy Adventure on Ireland’s Greenway
Glamping Utah: Adventure Has Never Felt So Good
Discover California Closets – BC
Trending Now: 10 of Our Favourite Homewares for Late Summer 2023
Catch Top Vancouver Designers Sharing Their Decor Secrets in a New Design Convo Series
5 Reasons to Enter the WL Design 25
Introducing Western Living’s 2023 Designers of the Year Award Winners
WL Architectural Designer of the Year 2023: SMStudio
If you can handle a few pieces of drywall, this unique feature wall is a doable DIY with some serious impact.
When designer Ben Leavitt of PlaidFox Studio first pitched the idea of an architectural circle wall to me as part of our renovation, I had two thoughts: “YES” and “HOW.”
Creating a circular recess on an otherwise boring-white-wall adds a hit of architectural interest… but, knowing nothing about construction or geometry, it also added a challenge.
We had committed to doing our renovation with the help of a few key tradespeople and my father-in-law, and this seemed out of scope for everyone. Drawing a free-hand circle is hard enough — was I really going to expect my husband’s 72-year-old dad to hand-build one onto the wall?
But he took one look at the renderings and didn’t even blink. “Oh yeah,” he said, waving his hand over it nonchalantly as I babbled about whether or not we’d need a protractor, “That’s not a problem.” Then, he surprised me by basically becoming obsessed with executing the circle wall. There was so much to do every day and the circle wall was basically always the least important or time-sensitive thing to accomplish, and yet he would happily show up to toil away at lovingly mudding the seams. He’s a handy guy and everything he did was so helpful and practical… but the circle, I think, was his opportunity to show his creative side, too. And I gotta say: he crushed it.
It probably isn’t as easy as he made it out to be, but it’s not as hard as I thought it was too. And once I figured out that we could decorate the interior of the circle with easy-to-apply vinyl decals, we were able to make this special architectural detail even more special. (These are the ones I bought, from Urban Walls.) You can make it your own in so many different ways, though: paint it a special colour, wallpaper it, cover the surface with artful wall hooks, or, of course, paint a mural of your saintly handyman father-in-law.
1. Build a frame of 2x4s on your wall to mount the pieces of drywall: essentially, you’re installing a wall of panels over top of your existing wall. 2. Cut pieces of drywall to cover the wall end to end. Loosely attach to mounts. 3. Put a screw where you’d like the centre of the circle to be. Attach a piece of string the length of the radius of the circle, and a pencil to the end of that. 4. Keeping the string taut, trace the diameter of the circle—perfect!
5. Unmount the pieces of drywall with circle marks on them. 6. Use a jigsaw to cut along the circle line. 7. Remount to the wall. Now you should have a recess where the original wall was.
8. Cover the gap inside the wall with a thin strip of trim. Mud, sand to smooth, and paint the seams.
Are you over 18 years of age?